Sunday, January 03, 2010

Cartoonist attacker has known terrorism connections

Danish police admitted yesterday that a Somalian caught breaking into the home of a cartoonist whose work sparked riots across the Muslim world five years ago was a would-be assassin with links to al-Qaida.

The 28-year-old had an axe and a knife when he was shot and wounded by police late on Friday night after cartoonist Kurt Westergaard heard windows being broken and pressed a panic alarm at his house in Aarhus.

News of the attack on Westergaard, 74, who was with his five-year-old granddaughter at the time, shocked many in Denmark who had believed the country's brush with Islamist extremism was consigned to the past.

Given what's known about the Somali attacker many Danes must wonder why the Hell he hasn't been sent packing:

He had "close ties to the Somali terror organisation al-Shabaab as well as to al-Qaida leaders in East Africa", the Danish security and intelligence service, PET, said in a statement.

Westergaard's attacker, who has a residence permit for Denmark, is also "suspected of being involved in terror-related activities in East Africa", the intelligence statement said.

If only police had shot him fatally, instead of the leg and arm, this Islamonutter's career would be over, instead it's only been interrupted.

3 Comments:

The crime of blasphemy appears several times in the Christian Bible and the related movie Life of Brian. In the Bible, some characters are stoned to death for blasphemy, and Jesus is condemned to death for the same offence. In Life of Brian, a character is stoned to death for telling his wife that a piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.

It is silly because it revives a medieval religious crime in a modern pluralist republic. And it is dangerous because it incentivises religious outrage, by making it the first trigger for defining blasphemy.

Love the Mo cartoon. Well done. Surely, Jesus would like the artists to create a cartoon for him too.

The law also discriminates against atheist citizens by protecting the fundamental beliefs of religious people only. Why should religious beliefs be protected by law in ways that scientific or political or other secular beliefs are not?